This invention relates to the use of a skin health benefit agent to enhance skin health. A treatment combination includes a surfactant and skin health benefit agent that can be applied to a substrate such as a nonwoven web, such that the composition will impart adequate fluid handling properties to the substrate and will subsequently be transferred to the skin for enhancing skin health. The treatment composition may further be used as a vehicle to deliver other agents to the skin, e.g. proteins.
The skin is naturally an excellent barrier to the penetration of many foreign substances. From time-to-time, the natural ability of the skin to protect is compromised by external factors including abrasions, irritants and the like. Attempts have been made in recent years to promote skin health through the use of various products containing additives or developing synthetic or naturally occurring polymers that mimic or complement the properties of skin in order to maintain the skin health.
It is known that various agents have skin enhancing properties when applied to skin and hair. Effective delivery of skin health benefit agents that can enhance or prevent damage to the underlying protective barrier of skin, is not yet known.
Enhancing skin health and delivering agents to the skin to promote skin health has many advantages including: 1) protecting the skin and maintaining the skin in a moist state, essentially free from chapping or irritation, 2) pH buffering and barrier enhancement to maintain or enhance such base properties of skin, 3) inhibition of irritants that are suspected to promote irritant or allergic contact dermatitis, and 4) maintaining the lubricity of skin.
The permeability of the skin to a foreign substance is influenced by a combination of physico-chemical parameters for both the object and the vehicle, if applicable, that delivers the object. Maintaining health of the skin and its underlying barrier properties requires optimal physico-chemical properties of the skin.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,560 to Buckingham, assigned to The Procter and Gamble Company, discloses methods for treatment and prophylaxis of diaper rash and dermatitis using a lipase-inhibiting agent in the form of a water-soluble metallic salt, such as ZnCl2.
There is a need for a treatment composition for use with a substrate that is capable of delivering a thin, tenacious, substantially continuous film of the skin health benefit agent to the skin that can prevent or reduce skin irritation, maintain pH, and maintain skin hydration and lubrication. The combination of the instant invention fulfills this need. Additionally, while skin wellness additives are known, other compositions have had the undesired side effect of reducing wettability, or the fluid intake rate, of the substrate. There remains a need for a treatment combination for application and use with a substrate that will not adversely affect fluid handling properties of the substrate, e.g. fast and sustainable fluid intake rate.
The present invention relates to a combination for surface treatment of a substrate, e.g. a nonwoven web, used in personal care product applications. The surface treatment combination not only provides adequate fluid handling properties, but also provides a topical delivery system effective in depositing a thin, tenacious and substantially continuous coating of a skin health benefit agent on skin by an aqueous emulsion mediated dissolution of the agent from a substrate with subsequent transfer and deposition onto the skin. Coatings of the skin health benefit agent on the skin resist removal, thereby preventing damage to the natural skin barrier and providing a protective barrier against mechanically-, chemically-, and biochemically-induced skin damage. Also provided is a treatment combination for application and use with a substrate that will not adversely affect fluid properties of the substrate, e.g. fast and sustainable fluid intake rate as long as the material/product is being used.